MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay and Brazil clash over WTO candidates.

Brazil and Uruguay could not agree on a Mercosur consensus candidate for the World Trade Organization Director General post, but coincided that “we still have time until December”.

Brazilian Foreign Affairs minister Celso Amorim and Uruguay's candidate for the WTO Director General post, Ambassador Carlos Perez del Castillo met in Montevideo but were unable to reach an understanding on the controversial issue of who should succeed Mr. Supachai Panitchpakdi next year.

"I don't see what authority Brazil has to talk in the name of developing countries; I have the support of the majority of Latinamerican countries", said Mr. Perez del Castillo following a meeting with Mr. Amorim during the XIIIth assembly of the Latinamerican Integration Association, ALADI.

Last week Mr. Amorim reportedly underlined that Ambassador Perez del Castillo attitude during the WTO September 2003 conference in Cancun, Mexico, which finally drafed a "non-favourable" document, "did not satisfy several developing countries governments".

"We don't question Mr. Perez del Castillo knowledge nor do we doubt his best intentions when drafting the Cancun document, but "a man is a man and his circumstances"", said the Brazilian representative quoting the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset.

Mr. Amorim recalled that it can't be forgotten that Mr. Perez del Castillo opposed the G-20 request to include in the document that for an effective advancement in trade liberalization, "developed countries must first put an end to agriculture government subsidies".

The Group of 20 headed by Brazil, India and China, and to which Uruguay does not belong, insisted in Cancun that negotiations for further world trade liberalization were conditioned to the subsidies clause which apparently Mr. Perez del Castillo, then president of the WTO General Council ignored.

Brazil therefore is sponsoring its own candidate, Brazilian Ambassador Luiz Felipe Sixas Correa.

However Uruguayan Foreign Affairs minister Didier Opertti with a more conciliatory tone said the "issue was not to be discussed openly, and we have agreed with my colleague Celso Amorim that we still have time until December" to agree on a consensus candidate.